RICHMOND / Officials mull crackdown on Cinco de Mayo / Violence prompts proposal to close street next year

Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PDT, Saturday, May 7, 2005

RIOT_003_CAG.JPG
Police, dressed in riot gear, walk down 23rd Street in Richmond, Ca., on Thursday, May 5, 2005, after dispersing an unruly crowd of about 700. Richmond Police, along with various local agencies quelled a small riot on Thursday night, May 5, 2005. The riot started when a group of about 700 people, gathered for Cinco de Mayo festivities on 23rd Street, began to throw rocks and bottles at police after fights had broken out among revellers. Photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The San Francisco Chronicle
Photo taken on 5/5/05 in Richmond, CA. MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT less

RIOT_003_CAG.JPG
Police, dressed in riot gear, walk down 23rd Street in Richmond, Ca., on Thursday, May 5, 2005, after dispersing an unruly crowd of about 700. Richmond Police, along with various local ... more

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez

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RIOT_003_CAG.JPG
Police, dressed in riot gear, walk down 23rd Street in Richmond, Ca., on Thursday, May 5, 2005, after dispersing an unruly crowd of about 700. Richmond Police, along with various local agencies quelled a small riot on Thursday night, May 5, 2005. The riot started when a group of about 700 people, gathered for Cinco de Mayo festivities on 23rd Street, began to throw rocks and bottles at police after fights had broken out among revellers. Photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The San Francisco Chronicle
Photo taken on 5/5/05 in Richmond, CA. MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT less

RIOT_003_CAG.JPG
Police, dressed in riot gear, walk down 23rd Street in Richmond, Ca., on Thursday, May 5, 2005, after dispersing an unruly crowd of about 700. Richmond Police, along with various local ... more

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez

RICHMOND / Officials mull crackdown on Cinco de Mayo / Violence prompts proposal to close street next year

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A rowdy Richmond Cinco de Mayo celebration in which revelers tossed rocks and beer cans at police and destroyed store windows and parked cars prompted civic leaders Friday to seek ways to curb the violence that has become an annual rite in the city.

Thursday's festivities began as an informal gathering at El Tapatio restaurant on 23rd Street, a main thoroughfare in a predominantly Latino neighborhood. But by late evening, a crowd of nearly 1,000 people had gathered, toppling police barricades, breaking store windows, smashing car windshields and destroying bus stops.

Two revelers were arrested, and a police officer was sent to the hospital with minor injuries after being hit in the head with a full can of beer. Police estimated property damage at $10,000 to $15,000.

Several Bay Area cities that are home to large Latino populations, including Oakland, San Jose and Santa Rosa, host popular city-backed Cinco de Mayo festivities that draw thousands each year. Many of the cities began throwing the parties with the help of Latino community groups to thwart rowdy informal celebrations.

This was the fourth consecutive year the holiday has resulted in violence on Richmond streets, and city leaders agreed Friday that something needed to be done. But that's about all they can agree on.

"I'm Hispanic," said Richmond City Councilwoman Maria Viramontes. "That was not the Cinco de Mayo that I know that happened (Thursday)."

Viramontes said she had begun making phone calls to city leaders at 6 a.m. Friday, just hours after the final stragglers had finally dispersed. Among her suggestions is to shut down busy 23rd Street on Cinco de Mayor next year and make it off-limits to large groups, loiterers and people cruising in their cars.

"The thing about closing down 23rd Street completely is that they'll just move over to San Pablo Avenue, and we're still going to be faced with the same problem," said Councilman John Marquez.

Richmond held a city-sponsored Cinco de Mayo event at Civic Center Plaza until 2003, when it was cut in tight fiscal times along with all other city- backed cultural celebrations.

But with a burgeoning Latino community -- in 2000, Richmond's population of about 100,000 was more than 26 percent Latino -- and the annual violence on May 5, it is time to reconsider hosting that party, Viramontes said.

"I believe the city was foolish not to put up a city-sponsored event because we spent more money on public safety than we would have on an event," she said.

But others don't want to see the city spend valuable dollars on such an event. Councilman Tom Butt said he would prefer to see a nonprofit group run the party.

City residents are also torn about the best way to stop Cinco de Mayo violence. Many merchants on 23rd Street want to close shop early and leave the area, but others say hosting a block-party celebration might attract families and fewer rowdy youth. Residents in nearby neighborhoods are equally split.

"People are going to cruise as long as they are going to cruise, and if there's no violence or people doing doughnuts, then let people do their thing, " said Andres Soto, a Richmond resident who received a $150,000 settlement from the city after alleging in a lawsuit that police used excessive force and engaged in racially abusive behavior against him during Cinco de Mayo in 2002.

Marquez said he planned to ask Mayor Irma Anderson to form a task force to study the issue.

"We have to take a good look at what happened last night," he said Friday. "There were many families there celebrating, but it was a couple of hundred young people that caused the whole disruption."